Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
Rubbish. People have been predicting the death of the GPL for 20 years, and in 20 years time they'll still be predictig its death.
Despite a concerted web-wide astroturf campaign by Free Softies predicting the legal enforceability of the GPL in the good old USA, nothing could be farther from the truth. The SFLC filed seven consecutive BusyBox lawsuits without the underlying works being registered with the U.S. Copyright Office -- this fact rendered those frivolous lawsuits without standing to be heard by a federal court: "Pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 411(a) as well as its predecessor, § 13, it has been held repeatedly that ownership of a copyright registration is a jurisidictional prerequisite to an action for infringement. . . . A complaint which fails to plead compliance with § 411(a) is defective and subject to dismissal."; Techniques, Inc. v. Rohn, 592 F.Supp. 1195, 1197; 225 U.S.P.Q. 741 (S.D.N.Y. 1984). To remedy the standing problem the SFLC plaintiff filed a criminally fraudulent copyright registration claiming ownership of code he clearly doesn't own -- just ask Bruce Perens and about twenty other BusyBox developers. It would be a breath of fresh air to hear someone like yourself admit that no lawsuit ever filed by the SFLC has ever made it farther than a voluntary dismissal by the plaintiffs *and* prior to a federal judge ever reading a single word of the frivolous Complaint. The idiotic claims of "victory" that follow these dismissals by the SFLC remind me of the movie scene in "The Hunt for Red October" where the submarine Dallas abruptly sounds and a rescued Russian midshipman exclaims, "The Captain's scared them out of the water!" http://www.fini.tv/blog/finishing_line_files/a44f9390355368f87dc47b7ec094f93e-36.php Free Softies have lost all sense of self-respect. I predict the SFLC can prevent the legal interpretation of the GPL by a federal court for another twenty years. Free Softies should try really, really try hard to understand the principle alluded to in the saying "Bullshit walks and money talks". Sincerely, RJack :) _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss